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Introduction
There is safety-related risk in every endeavor, and decisions should be made as to the acceptability of risk prior to initiating any activity. Subsequently, when safety management decisions are completed concerning a system or product, the associated risks are affected, produced, incurred, changed or eliminated. There are many formal methods within decision analysis that can be applied when making safety-related decisions. This paper discusses the use of a pay-off table, the development of a safety trade-off table, and applying consensus decision making.
Decision Makers and Risk
There is a dynamic relationship between any endeavor and safety-related risk. It is important for management to understand this dynamic relationship between the system or product and risk. The human element is part of the system or product. People interface, interact and become part of it. Consequently, decisions that affect it will affect people and associated safety-related risks. If suitable decisions are to be made, there should be an understanding of common perceptions — a communication between the decision maker, the designer and the end user, the person (the customer) who may be exposed to the risk. If perceptions differ and there is a lack of communication, there is an imbalance and risks may be inadequately identified or controlled, and, as a result, be unacceptable.
Decision makers should also be aware that there is an apparent relationship between direct exposure and risk perception. The further removed people may be from a particular risk, the less likely it is that they may be concerned about the consequences of exposure. The relationship between a high-level decision and a consequence can be fuzzy if there is a lack of common perception between the decision maker and the potentially affected.
 Additional complications should be considered by decision makers; the system may be complex, or there may be intricate system risks, which may be understood by designers and not communicated adequately. It is also possible that due to the complexity or depth of analysis, quality of analysis, and error or oversight, not all system risks may have been identified or communicated.
Personal perceptions and attitudes about risk cannot easily be excluded from judgment made on risk acceptability. An additional obstacle involves the consideration of risk perception: risk-taking versus risk-avoidance attitudes or behavior. Recent research indicates that genetically, a person may be a risk taker or a risk avoider. There is yet another continuum to address between risk taking and risk avoidance, and where a particular decision maker is on that continuum.
Given all the considerations discussed involving behavior and attitude, is it possible for a manager, decision maker or committee to make appropriate unbiased judgments concerning risk? The likelihood of successful decisions on risk may depend in part on education and awareness of the considerations addressed.
Decision Analysis, Theory and Applications
Formal methods are applied in management to aid in decision making. This field of work is referred to as decision theory or decision analysis [Ref. 1]. The techniques are used to determine optimal strategies when a decision maker is faced with several decision alternatives and uncertain or risky future events. The application of decision analysis is extensive, and approaches vary from the construction of tables and decision trees to the use of extensive decision analysis within computer applications and modeling.
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